J.F. Webb School of Health and Life Sciences student Armani Grillo places a solution into a centrifuge during the 2014 VGCC Biotech Workshop. (VGCC photo)
Vance-Granville Community College has scheduled its third annual Biotech Workshop for local high school students, as one of a series of VGCC Arts & Sciences camps and workshops being held this year.
All tenth, eleventh and twelfth graders who have taken or are currently taking biology and chemistry are invited to attend the workshop, which is set to take place over the course of two Saturdays: May 2 and May 9, each day from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Students must attend on both days.
Sessions will be taught by VGCC faculty in the state-of-the-art biotech lab in Building 8 on the college’s Main Campus in Vance County. “This workshop will give students a great opportunity to build their résumés and gain hands-on experience in a real laboratory with advanced equipment,” said VGCC Bioprocess Technology program head Dr. Tara Hamilton, who will oversee the workshop. “You can develop lab skills here that you can use in college and in various STEM careers, whether it’s in scientific research, high-tech manufacturing or medicine.”
Students will be introduced to Biotechnology, which is broadly described as using living organisms to develop and manufacture products for human use. This can range from yogurt and cheese to the production of human proteins in bacteria. The workshop will focus on the theories and methods behind producing and purifying proteins from bacteria that are normally found in other organisms. Participants will induce production of a jellyfish protein (Green Fluorescent Protein) from a culture of bacteria containing the gene and will proceed to purify the GFP through common laboratory methods. Concepts and skills such as micropipetting, spectrophotometry, centrifugation and column chromatography will be covered during the workshop.
The cost to attend the workshop is $40, which includes lunch each day.
This opportunity is one of a number of initiatives by the VGCC Arts & Sciences division to reach out into the community with unique learning activities. A Creative Writing workshop for adults took place in February. The annual VGCC Science Camp for rising sixth, seventh and eighth graders and the Teenworks Drama Camp, which targets rising eighth graders through high school seniors, will both be held this summer.
The deadline to apply for the Biotech workshop is Friday, April 24. For more information, contact Dr. Hamilton at (252) 738-3285 or hamiltont@vgcc.edu.